Chapter XXII: I Run Across an Old Friend

It has always been my fate to suffer most at the hands of my best friends; and now it was to be my dearest, my little sister, who was to shoot her arrow over the house and wound me. In innocence, Heaven forgive her; and, in forgiving, answer to itself for making me the unconscious instrument of its retribution.

It was in the third year of my “minority,” and while in the full zest of my conspiracy with young Roper, that one night we made up a party for Vauxhall Gardens, and crossed from Whitehall Stairs--very merry with French horns and lanterns and a little Roman boy, Ugolino, who sang like an angel--to witness the new picture of a tempest in the cascade house. This we had seen, and were gone for supper into one of the boxes (which Bob called the loose boxes) in a retired corner of the grove, when occurred the _contretemps_ which was to change the whole face of my fortunes. I had observed, without marking them, a couple enter the adjoining booth, and was bawling my part in a catch, while waiting for the chickens and cheesecakes, when a fellow put his head round the partition, and, kissing his dirty hand with a leer, “Beg pardon, leddies,” says he, “but I can supplement that ’ere chaunt with a better”--and immediately, disappearing from sight, began to bang the table beyond and to roar out a filthy ballad.

Roper leapt to his feet--there was a crowd lingering by, attracted by our merriment--and ran round to the front.

“Stop, you sot!” screamed he, “or I’ll nail your ears to the table!”

The fellow ceased dead, and in a moment came staggering out with a furious face. He was a coarse, blotched ruffian, and as drunk as David’s sow.

“What, the ’ell,” said he, lurching up his words; “ain’t one song as good as another in this here bordel, mister?”

Bob struck like Harlequin, and the wretch went down. I had once before heard the smack of flesh on flesh, and it made my blood jump.

There was a fine uproar: we had all risen to our feet; and in the midst I observed the girl (we had forgot the creature had a companion) slip out of the box and away, taking advantage of the confusion to mix with the crowd. I just saw her white face melt from me, and gave one gasp, and started in pursuit. My companions called; but I took no notice, and was lost in a moment.

She was making for the Druid’s Walk, unheeding my cries in her blindness. But in a little she began to falter, and then to sway, and I came up with her, and caught her into my arms.

“Patty!” I whispered, frantic, “Patty!”

She looked at me quite dumb and bewildered, the poor thing; and then sighed, and mechanically put her hair back from her temples.

“Patty!” I urged again, “don’t you know me?”

And at that, all of a sudden she had burst into tears, and was clinging to me.

“Is it you, Diana?” she sobbed, “really you at last? O, I have so longed, since we came, and I knew you was here in London! Take me away; don’t let me be carried back.”

She was near choking me with her arms.

“Hush!” I said. “What have they been doing with you? Pish, child! that was never--no, no; with all your softness, you couldn’t be such a fool. Who the deuce was it, then? Now, don’t answer; but come with me where we can talk.”

We were already being accosted and offered genteel squiring. The child held to me, terrified, while I laughed, and convoyed her in safety to the open, where we were lucky to encounter one of my party.

“Is it over?” I asked.

“O, faith!” he answered, quizzing my friend, “the manster’s floored; and Parseus refreshing himself on Roman panch; and here, by my soul, ’s Andrameda come to give thanks to her presarver.”

“Well,” I said, “Andromeda’s in better hands for the present; so you must e’en take us where we can talk private, while you mount guard.”

He looked mightily astonished; but, obeying, conducted us to the farthest limits of the grounds--where was little company but the keepers, put to restrain interlopers from the fields beyond--and there set us on a seat, and withdrew. And the moment we were alone, I took the girl and held her at arm’s length.

She was the same as ever, though her figure grown a thought too full for perfection, perhaps. But there were the soft, bashful eyes, and the naïve face, too white under its dark hair, that I loved so well.

“So,” I said, nodding my head, “we meet again, like the town and country mice. And are you still under her dominion, you little brown frump?”

She could not have enough of wondering, and fondling me, and weeping; but her inarticulateness filled me with a horrible foreboding.

“What!” I cried, giving her a little shake; “don’t tell me, miss, that--but, no, I won’t hear it! ’Tis grotesque beyond reason.”

“What do you mean?” she whispered.

I looked searchingly into her eyes.

“No,” I said, reassured; “there are the same unborn babies there. But who, then, was that brute you ran from?”

She put her arms round my neck.

“He--he is a groom of madam’s, and high in favour with her because a good Catholic. She bids me listen to him; and--and I don’t know what she means, Diana, or what he means. He is a coarse and violent man--sometimes. But she forces me into his company, and to see the town together. And O, Diana! I am almost sure he drinks too much.”

I burst into a laugh.

“You should be whipped for the slander, child. But I suspect the truth. We don’t run but from those we have a partiality for. Watch Moll and Meg at dragging-time in the fairs.”

She cried “Diana!” and, looking up horrified into my face, read its mockery, and, gasping out, “I am very unhappy,” fell away from me.

“You poor little creature!” I cried, fiercely moved by her distress; “if _you_ don’t know what madam means, _I do_. ’Tis the way with the quality to pension off their discarded fancies on Jack or Molly.”

She showed by her manner that she did not understand me, but my indignation would not let me explain. Moreover, I was too satisfied with my own solution to wish it contradicted.

“Never mind,” I said, stamping my foot. “Tell me everything--every word.”

Then it all came out in a flood: How, since my removal, madam had visited more and more upon her innocent head the trespasses of her poor little friend and sister; how this habit, vindictive at the best, had grown into a very fury of spite (which I laughed much to hear about) when de Crespigny’s wandering fancy had begun (as it inevitably had) to turn from the hop-pole, which had invited it to be wreathed about itself, to the ripe little sapling growing so snug beside; how, in her jealousy, my lady had driven her below stairs, and at last made her altogether consort with the servants as her proper peers, who had only been lifted by her generosity out of the gutter; how, not content with this, literal, debasement, she had thought further to soil her by forcing upon her the reversion of her tipsy _cavaliere servente_ (as, anyhow, I chose to think him), a tyranny which had at last driven the soft little creature to despair and rebellion. So she told me all, though with less force and conviction, poor simplicity, than I have chosen to put into her relation.

“And you was gone--and how did you escape, Diana?--and I hated Mr. de Crespigny as much as I hate this one--and it all makes no difference, and I don’t know how I can bear it longer,” she cried, in a breath.

“Very well, then,” I said, and looked sternly at her. “You must find the courage to run away.”

I had thought that the very suggestion would make her faint; but instead, to my surprise, a rose of colour flew to her pale cheeks.

“Yes,” she whispered. “If I only knew where!”

O, fie on madam! She must have been a cruel task-mistress, indeed!

“There!” I said, “you naughty little thing! But confess to me first what you have heard tell about your sister.”

“What does that matter,” she murmured, hanging her head, “when nothing in the world can ever alter my love for you?”

I took her in my arms, and touched her little simple toilette into shape here and there.

“You are very desperate, in truth, child. What do you say--will you risk all, and come and be my duenna? You are older than I, sure, and shall defend your little sister from slander. I will get the earl to consent, if you will say yes.”

She seemed beyond answering, but could only cling to me in a kind of frenzied rapture.

“And I will make a fine bird of my Jenny Wren,” I said, still busy with her; “for she has a thousand pretty little modest graces which will do me a vast credit in the dressing. You shall keep your natural hair, miss, for powder, since the tax, is not _à la mode_ with the best; but a gentleman’s arm--_le cas échéant_--would never go round this waist by three inches.”

I peeped, with a smile, into her face.

“O, if I only dared!” she sighed.

“Sir Benjamin,” I cried, rising instantly, “escort us to the gates, please, and call a coach.”

An hour later I broke upon his lordship’s privacy.

“Nunky,” I cried, “I want permission for a new toy, please.”

He looked up askew. He was in the hands of his valet.

“I have been taking thought for my reputation,” I said, “and desire a duenna.”

He screwed out a laugh and an oath.

“I’ll have no old hags about.”

“’Tis a young hag but a little older than myself. Will you let me?”

“No, I won’t.”

“It will please me.”

“No.”

“It will spite Lady Sophia to death.”

“Curse it, you viper! I’ll think about it.”

“Very well. I’ll bring her to be introduced.” And, before he could remonstrate, I was gone.

We found him in demi-toilette when I returned, dragging my reluctant baggage with me, like a lamb to the slaughter. She was as terrified as if ’twere for him I coveted her, and not for myself. He started, seeing her, and came and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Well, I vow,” said he, “’tis a toy for a king. Whence come you, child? From my sister? She was wise to dismiss you, egad!”